Playing the role of your typical garden variety gang member, it’s your job to keep the streets of your city free from the influences of social stability. To assist you in this aim, the local Gangland bosses delegate missions to you and this is where you say goodbye to any hint of 90’s Political Correctness. Ranging from car theft, you’ll soon graduate to tasks such as assassinating the local police chief because he wants a larger bribe and the classic, “My Brother has found out I’m banging his wife, go waste the Son-of-a-bitch”. Well…um…delicate this game ain’t.

All of the numerous missions gain you points, with the ultimate aim of graduating to the next city (level). To keep things non-linear you get points for all sorts of “Activities” along the way that you can undertake at any time. Running over pedestrians in that stolen sports car of yours gains some street cred. Arming yourself with a machine gun, and creating havoc downtown is also considered a beneficial activity. Causing a vehicle to explode, then watching the firetrucks and ambulances arrive and you guessed it, taking aim at them as well. It’s fun, but in a guilty way I suppose. Committing such crimes may give you the points required, but it doesn’t put you on friendly terms with the local Constabulary. The more chaos you instigate, the higher your “Wanted” rating goes and soon enough it’s time for high speed pursuits and road blocks. Be warned, the police shoot back, and some pretty nifty driving skills are needed. Good taste aside, you can always fire back at the cops and hijack their cars.

All of the graphics are presented as a bird’s eye view of the city, which looks simple but gets the job done. Control consists of running around the city finding weapon power-ups in creates and then simply standing in the middle of the road and hijacking whatever car takes your fancy. Steal a family sedan and the performance is adequate, borrow a road burning sports car and it’s time for powerslides and high speed traffic weavering.



For a while GTA is fun, experimenting with the different cars and being a naughty criminal type with no ramifications past your computer monitor. Soon enough though, it becomes a case of, “Drive around, steal/shoot something and then drive around some more”. Even with the bonus of support for 3DFX accelerators and a terrific Techno/Rap/Country music CD soundtrack Grand Theft Auto is a short term experience.

Pete Sharpe